The 1:96 version includes two small models of Wernher von Braun and
Walther Riedel. Building two models of the A-2 and you can create a
small diorama.

History
About 1930 the German army ordnance department was interested in the
research and development of long-range rocket missiles. The army took
contact to a group of amateur rocket enthusiasts in the "Vereinfür
Raumschiffahrt". After several visits at the "raketflugplatz",
they caught interest in one of the younger members of the group Werner von
Braun. At that time he was a a young student at the "Technical
University of Berlin.

Von Braun started to work for the army in 1932. After construction different rocket engines,
he started to von Braun work on a test rocket named Aggregat 1 or simply A-1. There might have been build 3
or 4 A-1. They never left the test beds. A construction with a large gyroscope
placed in the top of the rocket caused fractures in the oxygen-tank
leading to explosions.

Beside vonBraun one of most important members of the team was Walther
Riedel, an engineer. He joined the project in January 1934. He came from
HeylandtCompany, where he has been the responsible for the rocket motor
development. He became one of von Brauns most important co-workers. In the
end he became the Chief
Designer of the A4 (V2) rocket.

From spring 1934 it was decided to redesign the rocket totally. The new
type named Aggregat 2 or A-2. The gyroscope was moved down in the middle
of the rocket. The A-2 was 1.6 meter long rocket propelled with alcohol
and liquid oxygen

At the end of 1934, in December two A-2 rockets were ready for launch
from Borkum, a small island in the Baltic Ocean north of Germany. The two
rockets were nicknamed "Max" and "Moritz".

Max was launched at noon on December 19, and flew to a height of 2200
meters. Moritz was launched on December 20, just few minutes after dawn.
It flew to a height of 3500 meters.

The rockets was probably un-painted like the A-3. showing the
surface of aluminum and turbax (a kind of bakelite).

The launch of "Max" and "Moritz" marked an
important step towards to the A-4/ V-2 rocket and in the long perspective
to Saturn 5.

Building a new A-2 rocket "Maria"
In 2004 Dr.-Ing. Olaf Przybilski, Institut für Luft- und Raumfahrttechnik,
Technical University of Dresden presented an copy of vonBrauns A-2 rocket.
By researching the original documents of von Braun, he has been able to
build an exact copy of the A-2.

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the first A-2 rockets it was named
"Maria" in December, 2004. Beside the name Maria it also got
it's own color full paint scheme.

The research for making a copy of the A-2 lead to a lot of new
knowlegde about the A-2 rocket. Dr.-Ing. Olaf Przybilsk has been able to
correct much of the data known about A-2. Until then much of what have
been referred, originated from the memories of von Braun and others many
years after the second world war.

At a scrapyard near Penemünde, Dr.-Ing. Olaf Przybilsk has even found
parts identical to parts from A-2. There is a good chance, that they are
in fact from the rockets. It is known, the A-2 rockets were salvaged after
flight and they were probably kept at Penemünde.

The models
I am so impressed by "Maria", that I decided to include a model
of it with the original rocket A-2 rocket.

Thanks To
Dr.-Ing. Olaf Przybilski for his generous help and more important for the
work done by the Raketenspezialisten in Dresden to document this important
part of the rocket history.